as time goes on I'm beginning to realize that religion is a tool of politics

Yeah that's always been the point of religion. They needed some way to control people in the 1400s, so they told them that if they didn't do what they were told, and incidentally pay the church a lot of money, then the big man in the sky would be unhappy. That was about the level of sophistication that a con required back then.

Even as recently as 200 years ago pastors didn't really believe in god, it was just a convenient job to do if you were relatively well off but still needed employment, and didn't want to do any laboring. That's why a lot of them ended up being scientists, they were rich and bored.